But these offences are not so very serious after all. He does not eat so many cherries as our old friend the robin, though his depredations are more conspicuous, for whereas the robins in ones and twos will pilfer steadily from many trees for many days without attracting notice, a crowd of starlings is occasionally observed to descend en masse upon a single tree and strip it in a few hours. Naturally such high-handed procedure is observed by many and deeply resented by the owner of the tree, who suffers the steady but less spectacular raids of the robins without serious disquiet,

Less can be said in defense of the starling's scandalous treatment of some native birds. "Unrelenting perseverance dominates the starling's activities when engaged in a controversy over a nesting site. More of its battles are won by dogged persistence in annoying its victim than by bold aggression, and its irritating tactics are sometimes carried to such a point that it seems almost as if the bird were actuated more by a morbid pleasure of annoying its neighbors than by any necessity arising from a scarcity of nesting sites...